Monday, November 07, 2005

Spaghetti Legs

I just hit a deer. Thank god, thank god, thank god, I was only going 15 miles an hour. I was cresting the tiny hill on the narrow residential street in my neighborhood - the deer bolted out in front of me from between two cars. I hit my brakes as hard as I could, but his entry into the street matched my passing precisely. I smacked him and knocked him down, and time slowed down. I could feel the strength go right out of my legs, my hands started shaking, and my breathing sped up. I put on my hazards and tried to step out of my car, but my legs were too wobbly.

Strangely, for 5:30 in the evening, the street was empty - no cars coming by. No pedestrians walking from the Metro. Had anyone seen this, I'm sure they would have come over to see if the deer and I were okay. While I sat there, trying to get some power in my legs, the deer stood up. He was big. Really big. Both he and I are lucky I wasn't going full speed up the hill.

Damn, damn lucky.

He seemed stunned, and he turned and stared at me as if to say, "You idiot! Didn't you know I was going to bolt out right then and there, on a dark street, between parked cars?" And with that, he was off. I moved my car down to the condo office parking lot to see what damage had been done. Miraculously, my car doesn't have a single scrape. Just a bent license plate (which was in bad shape anyway), and a tuft of hair caught in my right front light assembly.

Lucky impact angle. Lucky me. Lucky deer.

I've wondered when I'd finally have a deer encounter, seeing as they are always hovering around my building, looking vaguely lost. Now I've had one, and my hands are still shaking, and my legs are still wobbly, and my neck hurts, and I don't need any more deer encounters, please sir, thank you very much.

Lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky, lucky...

Be careful, y'all. The deer are more insane than ever this season.

Damn.

12 comments:

Washington Cube said...

I'm sure you've heard the horror stories from people who have hit deer with worse results. Autumn is primo mating time for them, and their favorite time to be out doing these danger runs across the road is late afternoon/early evening, so everyone be alert.

paulnojustpaul said...

Crikey!

Glad to hear you're (both) okay!

Sasquatch said...

I'm glad you're (more or less) okay. Take some ibuprofen and become a couch creature for a little while...

Claire said...

I'm glad your encounter turned out as well as it did.

Merujo said...

I've got a killer headache right now. Can't really sleep yet, and my back aches now. Yippee. However, considering how this could have turned out, I'm okay with the outcome...

author said...

What a shocker! I'm sure Bambi has already forgotten it, though! A good run'll get that stuff out of your body!

Star Effer said...

that's ok. i hit a 13 yr old kid once by Knott's Berry Farm. it was 11pm, he had just shoplifted something from a giftshop and streaked across a busy street to run away from security. had i not slammed on the brakes and swerved at the last minute, he'd have been a goner for sure, and me clinically depressed for life.

sounds like you and your deer got a little banged up but nothing too serious. you'll both feel much better in a couple days...

suze said...

oooh. deer/car encounters rarely turn out as well as this one did.

lucky both of you. glad you're both okay.

Merujo said...

I'm ibuprofen girl today - a little sore, but it could have been a lot worse. Hopefully, big Bambi buck is feeling better than I am today. (Although his days are likely numbered with our annual controlled kill here in Montgomery County.)

Fabe - my parents hit a kid with their car on their wedding day in 1944. Actually, the kid hit their car. My 'rents were parked on a street near the church, and the kid saw an ice cream truck coming down said street. He was so focused on getting ice cream, he totally ignored the big, black, steel car parked in his way. My mom was yelling at him, but he still ran headfirst into their car. He was in a coma for a while - his hair turned white around the spot where he smacked the car - and my mother had terrible flashbacks for years.

I'm glad your kid/car event did not turn out worse!!

Star Effer said...

Wow! A coma? How fast was the kid running??

Thank God that didn't happen on my wedding day!! Poor parents...

Merujo said...

Apparently, the kid was running full speed, and he smacked his head right into the vehicle - sounds like he hit the car at the worst possible angle - and, if I'm recalling her account properly, he hit his head directly on something jutting out from the vehicle. (Light assembly? Hood ornament? It's been so long since I heard the story the last time, I've forgotten. If my mom was still around, she would be able to tell me right now, no doubt.) There was, Mom said, a lot of blood. Damn head wounds.

He was in a coma for several days - my parents kept going to the hospital to see how he was doing. Mom delayed her return to the airbase where she was stationed because she was so worried about this kid. The driver of the ice cream truck kept coming, too. He was so traumatized, he was in tears each time he came to see the kid. The parents said he tended to get "very focused" on things. (Makes me wonder if he didn't have a form of autism - I mean, damn - how do you not see an enormous parked car directly in your path?)

My mom saw him decades later - she recognized him on the street because of the big shock of white hair at the center of his forehead. She stopped to talk to him, and it turns out, he never regained his memory of the incident. My mother, however, was still talking about how horrible it was, well into her 70s...

Peggy Archer said...

Years ago, I worked on a very low-budget movie that shot in Utah's Wasatch National Park.

One day, one of our drivers hit a moose.

Not only did the moose total the truck, but the driver got fined by the state of Utah for 'poaching' - killing wildlife without a permit.